New Zealand: Breathtaking Kiwi landscapes can alleviate winter blues

Ann WitmerLochmara Lodge, a true retreat for nature lovers, provides visitors with a glimpse of many endangered species at the Wildlife Recovery Centre, including gecko, kakariki and weka.

It’s far away, it’s down under, and it’s sometimes over the top. New Zealand is a breath of fresh air.

So are the people who live there. (And yes, they call themselves Kiwis.) They play rugby with no pads. They cure wounds with manuka honey. They have summer when we’re having winter. And their national dessert, Pavlova, is as light on the tongue as the Russian ballerina for whom it is named was on her feet.

Air New Zealand cushions the 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland with space-age seats, sky couches, great wines and a refreshing “at your service” attitude. And where else in the world do they wash your hiking boots upon arrival so you don’t threaten their plants?

The French connection

New Zealand is best known for two things: the All Blacks and bungee jumping.

In October, New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team danced the intimidating pre-game Maori haka then went on to beat France for the World Cup, setting off a national frenzy that shows no signs of abating. The All Blacks hadn’t won for 24 years, since they beat France in the first World Cup.

That same year, 1987, a Kiwi named A.J. Hackett dove from atop France’s Eiffel Tower with only an elastic cord for a lifeline. Instantly notorious, Hackett headed home and turned commercial bungee jumping into a tourist phenomenon.

During our three-week stay in New Zealand in the springtime of November, my husband, Herb, and I found other pursuits like wine, art and wilderness.

New Zealand produces some of the world’s finest wines as well as luscious lamb and seafood. It’s the setting for dazzling films. And its beauty encompasses fjords and craggy Alps in the south, volcanoes in the north and pastoral river valleys where grapes and orchards thrive. You’re never far from water in this two-island nation with 4.4 million people.

The Fruit Bowl

We started with the wine.

The northern tip of the South Island, the Marlborough region, is also known as the Fruit Bowl.

More than half of New Zealand’s wine is produced in this cool climate region, famous for sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. Many of the 103 wineries pair their wines with seasonal foods grown locally.

“This is the best growing climate in the world,” said Noel Kennedy, who runs a tour company aptly named Wine, Art and Wilderness. “Things grow faster here.”

He took us to meet the “creators” of some of the region’s best food and drink at wineries such as Seifried, Nautilus and Cloudy Bay.

Karen Walshe’s Explore Marlborough food tours change seasonally. Since November is springtime in New Zealand, we sampled oils pressed from Basil Stanton’s olives. We got down on our hands and knees to pluck juicy red strawberries hanging below tables at a hydroponic farm.

Then, we gathered around Paul Scott’s pickup truck and munched on tender, just-picked asparagus. Scott coaxes 50 spears from each of the plants on his farm during the short 12-week growing season.

We cruised to a greenshell mussel farm in the Kenepuru Sound that looked like a row of black garbage bags tied to a line. But the mussels pried off that line and onto our lunch plates were large and succulent.

“They were originally called green-lipped mussels,” said Aussie, our guide, pointing to the green rim around the brownish shell. “But that didn’t go over too well in the U.S.,” which imports 41 percent of them.

While Kiwis love to eat and drink, they are vigorous people with many ways to keep on the move that are less extreme than bungee-jumping. We kayaked in the Tasman Sound, swam with dolphins near Picton, then headed north to hike.

The wilderness of volcanoes

The volcanic mountains of Tongariro National Park on the North Island inspired Mount Doom in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, filmed here in his homeland.

Rated as the best one-day trek in New Zealand, the 13-mile Alpine Crossing spans Mount Tongariro. It took us eight hours to hike with a stop at the top for lunch and to catch our breath in the thinner air at 6,100 feet.

The trek was challenging for those of us with a moderate level of fitness, but do-able. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, which administers a third of the country’s land, has built walkways over much of the ankle-turning terrain.

The Devil’s (wooden) Staircase helps hikers ascend some of the steepest climbs. There are a few rocks to scramble, snowfields to traverse and scree to slide down, but for the most part footing is good so you can enjoy the beauty of snow-capped mountains, blue and green lakes and the Red Crater’s yawning maw.

We spent a night in each of the park’s two hotels. The elegant Chateau Tongariro Hotel sits just below Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand’s largest active volcano. Its last spectacular eruption was in 1995, with several smaller ones since.

The other, Park Travellers Lodge, is more basic but just as comfortable, appealing to the many backpackers who hike the park and ski in the winter.

Art for all seasons

Our fondness for the irrepressible Kiwis grew as we explored New Zealand’s art world that ranges from delicate tattoos on the faces of Maori elders to paintings by Colin McCahon, regarded as New Zealand’s best.

The South Island’s oldest city, Nelson, is home to 400 artists. They wrap trees in knitting and carve instruments out of bone to preserve Maori traditions. It’s also home to the jeweler who fashioned the One Ring for Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and he’ll make you a copy.

A small museum here gave birth to “wearable art.” The idea was such a hit that wearable art outgrew Nelson and now draws 50,000 people to Wellington each fall for the World of Wearable Art (WOW) show.

Wellington is also home to Jackson’s film empire. Phil Mackie, who played an orc in “The Lord of the Rings,” takes visitors to some of the filming sites. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is now in production, scheduled for release in December.

Auckland’s Art Gallery reopened in September after a major expansion. New Zealand’s largest, its 15,000-piece collection ranges from unique Maori portraits to Whiz Bang Pop, a 3-D experience that is as close as I’ll ever get to bungee jumping.

A lodge on the edge

A small lodge on the shore of the Queen Charlotte Sound captured, for us, the magic of New Zealand.

We arrived at Lochmara Lodge by boat, the only way to get there other than hiking in.

One-time abalone diver Shayne Olsen started the lodge to house backpackers tramping the 44-mile Queen Charlotte Track. It is now a vibrant center for the arts and a wildlife recovery center as well as a lodge.

Our simple room overlooked the water. After a glass of wine and lunch on the deck, we went off to hike, guided by Paul, who knew everything about the flora we encountered, such as rangiora, whose velvety surface is known as “bushman’s toilet paper.”

We returned to the lodge along an outdoor sculpture trail laced with hammocks and quirky art like large bugs astride small buildings, three blue women and a bicycle with a reel mower as its back wheel.

After dark, we followed a path to a cavelike damp wall that glistened with glowworms. They twinkled like little white lights on Christmas displays we’d soon see at home.

Far away and down under, we’d had an early spring in New Zealand. Now, we braced for winter.

What’s the weather?

Kiwis live by layers. The weather is changeable and variable, depending on where you are. The southern tip of South Island gets Antarctic blasts. The northern tip of North Island is subtropical. Their seasons are the opposite of ours:

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